Redemption
by Mango Schmango
Summary: Helen/Menelaus, post Troy. Helen has learnt the hard way that there is a difference between lust and love, between fantasy and reality. Can Menelaus look past his resentment and reconcile with his wife who seeks redemption?


**Redemption**

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to genius of Homer. I'm just expressing my appreciation of it in a non-profit way. No infringement intended. **

My eyes flutter open and I blindly feel for the warm, slumbering body of my husband Menelaus, King of Sparta, but clasp onto nothing but cool sheets. I pull myself up into an upright position and my brow furrows as I fix upon the silent form of my lord standing motionless by the balcony, his back to me.

His auburn hair that always reminded me of fine copper now had an otherworldly glow from the reflection of the milky moon and the light breeze ruffled his simple night tunic that emphasised his stocky, muscular body. Even from my position on the bed, I could perceive the scars that he had sustained in battle— those marks of courage and honour that every man strove to earn.

My mind briefly drifted to Paris who would often stand by the balcony during those long, dark nights in Troy. But oh Aphrodite, how different was he to my husband! Paris was smooth, bronzed and supple. He had no mark of toil upon his skin; he had no lines of weighty care upon his face from governing his country. Unlike my husband, Paris lay about like a painted whore with his oils, fine tunics and exotic wines…

Paris…

My throat tightened. It had been one year since that orgy of violence, blood and slaughter in Troy, but there was not a day where Troy—that cursed name!—lay like an odious stain upon my life, whispering in my ear like a malevolent spirit. I could not break myself free from its unholy enchantment. Indeed, the black memories of Troy were like a shadowy whore that lay between my husband and I at night as if she were to keep us asunder for the term of our natural life.

Ever since our return from Troy one and a half years ago, Menelaus had treated me with remote civility and never raising his voice to me. But at night when he thought I was asleep, I would observe him under my lashes sit in his ornate bedside chair and just regard me slumber with an expression of guarded love that he withheld from me during the reign of Apollo's golden chariot.

Menelaus' piercing eyes turned towards me. He did not seem surprised at my wakeful state. He merely raised an eyebrow. "Thantos is not keeping you in his embrace?"

"Nay, my lord. It seems that you are not in the domain of Morpheus either."

My lord's mouth twitched into a half smile. "Nay. It seems that Selene has seduced me to her bright light."

I tipped my head to study him. "Does something ail you, husband?" I asked softly, rising from the sheets and kneeling at the foot of the bed.

Menelaus was silent, his face contorted as if in some sort of inner conflict with himself.

I held my hands out to him in a mute entreaty. "My lord, you know you can speak freely to me. Surely we can have no secrets now, after all we have endured."

"I want to ask you something and I request that you answer honestly."

"You know that I will reply with no half-truths."

"It hasn't always been so," Menelaus responded calmly.

"That is not fair, husband. The past is the past."

Menelaus took a sharp intake of breath. "Just tell me: do you still love _him_? Do you wish that _he_ was your liege lord instead of I?"

I knew very well who 'he' was.

_Paris_.

Even now, Menelaus could still not speak his name. He always referred to Paris as a nameless commodity, or disparagingly as 'that boy' or 'dandified whoreson'. I knew that there was a deep-seated fear that he was always going to be inferior to Paris in my affections and that self-same fear gnawed away at Menelaus like a festering wound and would not abate.

My gaze was steady upon him. "Hear me now, Menelaus of Sparta, dearly loved and much-wronged husband of your redeemed Helen, and hear me true. I did love Paris—" Menelaus made move to step back from me but I swiftly rose from the bed to him and clasped his weather beaten face in my hands. Now he could look nowhere else but at I.

"—I loved Paris _once_, but it was a brief spark of heated, self-indulging passion. He lavished attention and riches on me—"

"And I did not?" Menelaus hoarsely asked.

"I was a spoilt maiden who had known no other way of life but of veneration and indulgence. Paris merely stoked my vanity. He did not make me sit through dull envoy meetings or hearings from the common people, like you did."

"So I was the staid old warhorse and Paris was the exotic bird that flew in from some far-off region."

I stroked his face. "I was thoughtless and vapid. You were constant and true. I knew your love for me would pass through fire and flood unchanged but my selfish self still followed Paris to Troy—Aphrodite willed it."

Menelaus' frame shuddered violently, "Do not use Aphrodite as a paltry excuse. She merely played on what already existed in your heart."

"I know my conduct is reprehensible, Menelaus! I deserved the foulest death possible but remember—you spared my life! You deemed that my life still mattered to you; that you still cherished me beneath that pulsing rage!"

"I may have weighed you down with queenly duties and did not give you the life you were accustomed to, or expecting…but for you to run off with that-that-that prancing foal and make me the greatest cuckold in all of the Aegean, why?"

"It was not all my will, Menelaus! Aphrodite willed me to! And remember, husband, that you were warned about the visiting Trojans yet you still left me alone!"

"Do not put all your folly upon me!"

"I am doing no such thing. I am trying to explain to you the situation. My time with you was the happiest I had been. You gave me our daughter Hermione and gave me queenly responsibility that I only appreciated when I was sundered from you. I have grievously wronged you, but why did you spare my life? Was it to punish me for my transgression for the rest of my earthly existence?"

Menelaus attempted to wrangle himself free from my hold but I remained strong. "Then tell me this, wife of mine: when did your heart cleave to mine? Was it when you had lost your beloved paramour and I was merely the last protector against you getting run through with a sword like a gutted fish by a vengeful Greek or Trojan?"

I dropped my hands from his face and stumbled back from him, my heart pounding and my eyes becoming wet. "Since you are so determined to think ill of me, I do not know why I should bother answering you."

Menelaus swallowed hard, breathing heavily. "Just tell me."

I wiped the corners of my eyes with the back of my hand. "I knew what a mistake I made when you dueled with Paris. It was as if I was seeing you for the first time. You appeared on the battlefield like you were the son of Ares with your gleaming armour and flaming hair…it was a sight to behold. Never were Paris' faults glaringly clear than when he, by the connivance of Aphrodite, ran cowardly from you like a whelped puppy. That day brought all the little whispering doubts I had about Paris to the core."

What I uttered was true. My feelings to Paris had been a lustful candle that was eventually quenched when his personal defects outweighed the attributes I had originally found intoxicating.

Menelaus stared bewildered at me. "Truly?"

I gave him a tremulous nod for I was unable to speak for fear that I would weep.

A strangled sound erupted from his throat and to my shock he clasped me to his chest. "Wife of my heart and of my bone," he rasped, "It seems that I will never be able to break free from this enchantment my love for you has captured me in."

I let out a laughing sob and burrowed my nose into his chest. My tears were dampening his tunic and making the dye run. I felt his left hand stroke my hair. This was the first physical contact since our return to Sparta.

Something soft pressed down upon the crown of my head. His lips?

"The Gods above forgive me, but I cannot disown you for I am truly lily-livered where you are concerned. …"

I tightened my arms around him. "Nay, you are not construed of poor mettle, favourite of Ares, but of forgiveness."

He gently tipped my head up to his. For the first time, he seemed at peace. His dark eyes were intense. "It seems," he whispered, his breath stirring strands of hair around my face, "that we are joined together by a silken thread. It may fray or even wax or wane, like the moon, but always do we gravitate towards each other again."

My hands travelled up the contours of his arms. "That is a beautiful sentiment, my love." A thrill ran through me at the pleased expression on my husband's face at my wifely endearment. Finally he could see that I was no woman pining for her lost love in the ashes of Troy.

"It is a true sentiment," he quietly reproved me, his eyes filled with love for me. How could I ever have doubted him?

"It will take time to heal all the wounds Troy has wrought upon us, but I believe that we are starting to move forward," I said, and then I daringly brushed my lips against his cheek.

Menelaus started as if the mighty Lord of Olympus had struck him with a thunderbolt. His gaze was piercing. "Wife of mine, may I kiss you?"

I smiled softly. "Of course, my lord."

And without further ado, he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me slowly and sensuously. I meld my body against his and weaved my arms around his neck, responding eagerly to his ardour. We eventually pulled apart and he rested his forehead against mine, the both of us breathing raggedly.

Never before had I felt so tranquil. The tenderness I harboured for my husband filled my heart. Menelaus' eyes were warm. He lightly kissed my forehead.

"To bed?" he asked simply.

I nodded and he solemnly held out his hand for me to take. Silently he led me to our marital bed that had since Troy been a living mausoleum in which we lay stiffly side-by-side.

But tonight was different.

However, we did not make love. Neither of us was ready for that. Instead, we lay entwined, our limbs so entangled that I could not discern where our separate limbs commenced or ended. I could hear the steady thud of Menelaus' heart in my ear and it soothed me as he peppered light kisses on my bare shoulders, face and hair.

"To a new beginning," I said, squeezing his hand.

"To a new beginning," he replied, kissing me again.

We had a long way to go, but this was a most promising start.

**The End. I hope you all enjoyed it. Please review and tell me what you think as it would be most appreciated!**


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